North Carolina is moving to restrict Chemours's permit to discharge process wastewater into the Cape Fear River, which provides drinking water to residents of Wilmington, N.C.

Credit: Shutterstock

North Carolina is moving to restrict Chemours's permit to discharge process wastewater into the Cape Fear River, which provides drinking water to residents of Wilmington, N.C.

Credit: Shutterstock

Manufacture of fluorinated chemicals, including Nafion sulfonated tetrafluoroethylene-based ionic polymers, at Chemours’s plant near Fayetteville, N.C., could be hampered because North Carolina is suspending part of the facility’s permit to discharge process wastewater.

In September, the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality warned Chemours that as of Nov. 30, it would suspend the part of the water pollution permit covering the Nafion and fluoromonomers production area of the plant, a move that would require the company to capture and dispose of all wastewater from those manufacturing processes. Then in late October, the agency said this action wasn’t necessary because Chemours had taken steps to control the release of per- and polyfluorinated compounds in wastewater.

Thank you for publishing this news. We, in Wilmington, NC, have been working to gain national traction on this in hopes that it will force the company to stop polluting our drinking water. Anyone interested in learning more should visit www.cleancapefear.org.